09 May 2006

Spring Fling or Spring Flick?

Everyone seems to fall in love or out of love in Spring. It has always been late Spring or early Summer that my major relationships started and ended. My sister's year-and-a-half relationship just ended. Eeverywhere on the beach Sunday people were coupling off and googly-eyed.

But it isn't just romance. California is on honeymoon with its new bishop-elect. Me and my first year of seminary are about to break up. Friends are scattering across the country in just two weeks now, and soon I'll be off on a summer pilgrimage of sorts.

People are peeling off their sweaters around here and donning summer duds. Lots of white and pink and yellow everywhere. People are looking cuter as they anticipate leaving school and going on trips. People are preparing; eyes are all looking toward the horizon. We sit in class, but we're not really there. We write our papers as we think about what to pack and who to call next. Every day is one day closer to something new.

This creates a lot of energy build-up, which I think accounts for Spring twitterpation. Everyone is sort of vibrating -- either with caffeine to finish everything on time or with excitement to be done with the semester -- and people are giggling more as a result. Everyone seems to have on moon boots or a tigger-tail. People are barely touching the ground. Even people who are fighting look like they are about to make out.

"There is the past and its continuing horrors: violence, war, prejudices against those who are different, outrageous monopolization of the good earth's wealth by a few, political power in the hands of liars and murderers, the building of prisons instead of schools, the poisoning of the press and the entire culture by money. It is easy to become discouraged observing this, especially since this is what the press and television insist that we look at, and nothing more.
But there is also the bubbling of change under the surface of obedience: the growing revulsion against endless wars, the insistence of women all over the world that they will no longer tolerate abuse and subordination... There is civil disobedience against the military machine, protest against police brutality directed especially at people of color."
Source: A People's History of the United States, 1999 edition, page 661.